Democrats Accuse Issa of Racism to Distract from Lois Lerner and IRS Scandal

Mar 7, 2014

RUSH: Now, this clash that took place on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with Issa and Elijah Cummings, exactly what I feared and predicted and mentioned at the time has indeed happened. Here is the Washington Post and their headline, and they’re just enraged here. This is the Lois Lerner hearing. Lois Lerner was supposed to show up and answer specific questions about why she had, in e-mails, referred to the Tea Party and Tea Party activities in such disparaging and critical ways. The IRS is not supposed to single out groups for punishment. The IRS did sabotage Tea Party fundraising.

So Lois Lerner was brought back a second time, and she took the Fifth Amendment. The way it went was she’s brought in, she’s sworn in, Issa asked her five, six, maybe seven questions, she took the Fifth Amendment on every one. He said, “That’s all we’re gonna get, it’s over, there’s nothing to be done here,” and opening statements were made. He made an opening statement, others did. Elijah Cummings made an opening statement. He’s the ranking Democrat, little Elijah on the committee, he made an opening statement. Then Issa asked Lerner the questions. When she took the Fifth, that was it, and Issa adjourned. As he adjourned, Elijah, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, I have a question, I have a question.”

“No, no, the meeting’s adjourned.”

“What do you mean? I have a question. I want to ask a question.” The meeting was adjourned and then Issa relented and said “Okay, well, what’s your question?” And Cummings launched into a statement, and those were over. The meeting had been adjourned. So Issa cut Cummings’ microphone off, and this just enraged Cummings. I think this whole thing was planned. I think the whole thing was planned and strategerized so as to make this thing about Issa and not about Lois Lerner, and they succeeded. It is now totally about Issa. And guess what?

Also easily predictable, Issa is now a racist. Now, Darrell Issa has been working with these Democrats in the House for I don’t know how many years, and nobody has ever accused him of racism. The Reverend Jackson has tweeted that he thought it was really mean what Darrell Issa did, and he said it was racist. Which is about the only thing Jesse Jackson can say anymore that will make people stop and listen.

Other than that, Jesse Jackson’s not involved anymore. You want to talk about time having passed somebody by? It is indeed the Reverend Jackson. So now the whole thing has shifted, and there’s not one word of any substance of any kind about Lois Lerner and the IRS and what they did vis-a-vis the Tea Party. Now it’s all about how mean Issa was, except the racist charge has been thrown in.

Washington Post headline: ” Clash Between Issa, Cummings Latest Partisan Spat to Divide House Oversight Committee — The war between Democrats and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the controversial chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, took on a new intensity Thursday when some Democratic lawmakers called for Issa to be stripped of his committee chairmanship.”

Note that it is Issa who’s “controversial.” It was Cummings who lost control. You look at the video. It’s Cummings who’s yelling and screaming and looks exactly like what Republicans are told he never to do ’cause it’s gonna scare the independents, and it’s gonna scare women 25-year-olds and they’re gonna be running to the independents. Remember?

You take a look at the video and you will see an enraged Elijah Cummings behaving in a way the Republicans are told, “Don’t ever do that because the independents don’t like that! They don’t like fisticuffs and getting mad and so forth, and that’ll cause the independents to go running right back to the Democrats.” But when Cummings does it? Hey, it’s Issa who is controversial.

“‘Mr. Issa is a disgrace and should not be allowed to continue in a leadership role,’ Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH), who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote in a strongly worded letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH).” So this is it. Aside from Ukraine, this is the main story line in the media’s soap opera for today. Darrell Issa — a rich white, Republican — dissed the esteemed Elijah Cummings, a poor, powerless black man who escaped the bondages of slavery only decades ago.

And now here is Elijah Cummings — a poor, powerless black man — being reminded of what it was like to be on the plantation just a few short generations ago because of the behavior of Darrell Issa. Never mind, never mind that I am convinced all of this was contrived from the get-go to end up being a distraction. You know, Cummings is a seasoned veteran and professional. He waited until this thing was over.

He knew what Lerner was gonna do: Take the Fifth. He knew that Issa was gonna shut it down and that’s when he decided to make it look like, “Oh, wait a minute! I have a question.” After he knew exactly what was gonna happen. He was counting on Issa to shut down the hearing. Maybe it was a bonus that Issa turned his microphone off. They probably didn’t think that would happen, but that was bonus.

But this entire staged event was about three things: Number 1. Distracting from Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth Amendment and all the damning evidence that’s recently come out about the IRS targeting the Tea Party. The second thing this was about is discrediting Issa by casting him as a racist in order to remove him from any position of power, because they’re serious about that. They do want to get rid of Issa.

This is what they do. They don’t want to get into the arena of ideas and have a debate. Like Governor Christie says (paraphrased), “We need to roll up our sleeves and show the country that we can get things done, that we can work together!” They don’t want to get things done with us or work with us! They want to, in Issa’s case, eliminate it, get him thrown off the chairmanship — and, if possible, even off the committee.

The third thing it’s about is rekindling the Democrats’ war on the House Republicans. That is the centerpiece of their midterm campaign strategy, and that is war on the House Republicans, to characterize the House Republicans as racists and meanies and uncooperative bullies. It’s all part of that. You watch that video. I’m telling you, watch that video closely. You see Cummings is reading from notes, and you’ll see how phony his outrage is.

The outrage that he exhibits is so over the top. Now, about Lerner. Despite the efforts of the Drive-Bys to cast her off into invisibility, we have not lost sight of her. I’ll tell you what Lois Lerner is doing, and an interesting take about it. Does anybody not find it strange? When you take the Fifth Amendment, what are you doing? You’re saying I’m not gonna answer ’cause I don’t want to incriminate myself.

Now, we’re not supposed to assume anything from that, because the fifth is a constitutional right, but, come on. In the real world, it means a lot, and that is why they’ve done everything they can to sweep this off the front page and replace it with Issa is a racist pig being really mean to a poor, powerless black man who is only trying to do what’s best for his country.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Carol Platt Liebau writing at Town Hall: “Lois Lerner has answered questions for the DOJ investigation into the IRS targeting scandal, but continues to invoke her Fifth Amendment rights before the congressional committee. It’s an interesting decision, albeit not without precedent.” It’s happened before. But here’s the thing.

“Either Lerner feels that the committee is doing nothing but setting ‘perjury traps’ for her, or else she’s assured that the DOJ ‘investigation’ is little more than an exercise in making the scandal disappear,” is really not serious. So she’ll help it is DOJ because that’s Holder. That’s her buddies. She’s gladly talk to them, if they’re oriented toward just getting rid of this. Maybe both. Maybe she’s worried that they’re setting perjury traps for her, at the Issa committee, so she goes to DOJ.

Ms. Liebau says, “There are, of course, a number of good reasons for objective observers to suspect that Lerner’s motives are less than pure: The DOJ investigation,” which is where she’s talking, “is being led by an Obama donor — a highly unusual circumstance,” but typical for this regime. So she’s being “investigated” by real simpaticos. “The FBI has already signaled that it won’t file charges against anyone,” so what harm is there in talking to the DOJ?

“In short, the DOJ IRS investigation is a sham,” and I’ll tell you about this Ms. Learner. I have shared with you my interpretation of her, based on the way she carries herself, what she says, the way she acts. This woman is a seasoned liberal activist veteran. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and she’s getting away with it. The Washington Examiner has an editorial: “Lois Lerner Stays Silent to Protect Someone Outside the IRS.”

The theory in this editorial — and this is something, by the way, that the Drive-Bys, in real-world circumstances, would be all over this. Can you…? I’m growing tired of saying it, because everybody says it. Nothing ever comes of it, but it is. Can you imagine if this were a Republican administration and the IRS had been sicked on, say, ACORN, or some global warming people, some environmentalist wacko?

Can you imagine? And then the person they found was the brains behind the operation takes the Fifth Amendment? And then the investigator is a friend of George W. Bush? The guy running the investigation is Justice Department, friend of George W. Bush’s, and the ringleader freely goes and talks to them but will not talk to the Democrat-run committee, the chairman who would be Elijah Cummings? Can you imagine?

The media would be all over this! The media would be demanding to know who is Lois Lerner trying to protect. That would be the real focus. If this situation reversed, they’d be finding out. The only thing the media would care about was, “Did Bush,” or whoever the Republican president would be in our example. “Did Bush order this done?” That would be all they would care about. They wouldn’t care about the Republican equivalent of Lois Lerner. They’d be all over it.

In this case, they’re nowhere to be found.

They don’t care.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, what they’d be looking at is, okay, you’ve got the IRS investigating, examining stonewalling ACORN. You’ve got the IRS demanding that a bunch of environmentalist wacko groups prove that they’re tax-exempt, and you deny them their tax-exempt status, and the environmentalist wacko groups are not able to raise money for a campaign. Just turn this all around. You have some Republican president and his minion is running the IRS, and they are refusing to grant tax-exempt status to just two or three of these favored, accredited Democrat activist groups, and then the Democrats find that there’s one person behind all of this, the Lois Lerner equivalent.

Do you think the media would be satisfied just knowing that there was a Lois Lerner equivalent? You know damn well that they would be trying to trace this. They’d be trying to prove that this IRS scandal went all the way to the Oval Office. They wouldn’t stop. In fact, before they were able to prove it, they would be alluding to it. All over the cable news guest after guest after guest: “I am certain that an underling like Lois Lerner wouldn’t take it upon herself to do this. No. An underling like this, no matter how high-ranking, Chris, would certainly have to have approval from the highest levels of the administration.” And every other guest would agree and applaud, and the host.

There would be an onslaught, an unceasing, everyday 24/7 effort to tie the president to this, because this is the IRS. And it would have been demonstrated that the IRS had been taken over by the president and had been used as a political weapon. That is exactly what happened here, except in this case, all it means today is that Darrell Issa was mean to Elijah Cummings. That’s what the story is. That’s the Drive-By soap opera narrative. You know darn well if you reverse parties it would be just the exact opposite. But here the Washington Examiner does have an editorial, and they say this is a question that the media ought to be all over.

Who ordered the IRS to get involved? Who at the IRS responded to that order? Who were they ordered to target? What actions did they take? Now, Lois Lerner — this is key — Lois Lerner cannot answer those questions because, as she herself said, it would be incriminating. What does that tell you? She can’t answer these questions. Who ordered the IRS to get involved? “Nobody. I did it myself.” Really? Okay. Well, who in the IRS responded to this order that wasn’t given? She’s been asked these questions, and she’s being asked even more specific questions about why, in her e-mails, did she say this Tea Party thing is dangerous. “I respectfully decline to answer on advice of counsel and I am asserting my Fifth Amendment privilege,” because the answer could incriminate her.

So she’s not talking about it to the committee, but she is talking about it up at the DOJ. The investigation there is being run by a Clinton donor.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Cummings. Now, this is last night. This is the poor, powerless black man that was treated rudely and meanly and with disrespect by that racist Darrell Issa. He was on Erin Burnett OutFront last night. She said, “Should Congressman Issa lose his chairmanship because of the way he treated you?”

CUMMINGS: That’s gonna be up to the Republican caucus. I cannot imagine a Democrat chairman cutting off the mic of a Republican. I cannot imagine it. And I would never do it. I respect their voices, and I want to hear their voices. I will fight to hear their voices.

RUSH: Right, right, right, sing me a song, bring me the Stradivarius. That’s so big a load, I don’t know how to describe it. They have cut off microphones. They’ve done worse and I’ve got the evidence coming up, if you’ll sit tight, hang in there, and be tough. He doesn’t want to hear their voices. No Democrat does. That’s just one of these outreach efforts to the low-information voter. “I can’t imagine a Democrat.” It wasn’t that long ago that the Democrats sometimes refused to let Republicans even attend the committee, back in the Bob Michel days, back when this program started. In 1988, the House Republicans had 135 members out of 435. Bob Michel was the Republican leader. It was so bad that the Democrats oftentimes just wouldn’t even let Republicans in committee hearings.

“I would never cut off the microphone of a Republican, why, I would fight for that Republican to be heard.” And they do it all the time. Erin Burnett said, “Well, over the summer Issa faced some heat for what many said was an inappropriate comment. He referred to you, Congressman Cummings, as a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Now, some people questioned his use of the word ‘boy.’ They said that there was some sort of racial motivation there. Do you think, Mr. Cummings, that there is a pattern of disrespect to you specifically from Darrell Issa?”

CUMMINGS: He disrespected my colleague, Mr. Tierney, and Mr. Tierney is white. I’m not gonna get caught up in the racial piece because that simply ends up being a distraction, and it becomes the headline.

RUSH: Translation: “I don’t have to. My allies are doing that for me. I don’t have to sit there and charge racism. I got the Reverend Jackson doing it. I got you people in the media doing it. Erin, why should I do it? You just did it.” That’s what Mr. Cummings was saying. “It’s just a distraction. I’m not gonna get into whether or not he’s racist.” Well, you just did. You just called him a racist. “And my buddy, Jesse Jackson, tweeted he’s a racist. I don’t need to enter the fray.”

Let’s go back, January 11th, 2007, on the floor of the House, Barney Frank is running the House at this moment. He’s the chairman of the proceedings at that moment, and he and a Republican from North Carolina, Patrick McHenry, have this little back and forth.

FRANK: Yes, the gentleman may state the inquiry.

McHENRY: So the chair is saying that I may not offer an amendment —

FRANK: (pounding gavel)

McHENRY: — exempting —

FRANK: The gentleman will sus’thpend! (pounding gavel)

McHENRY: — American Samoa from this legislation?

FRANK: (pounding gavel) The gentleman will sus’thpend!! The gentleman is making a speech and will sus’thpend! The chair is not saying anything.

McHENRY: If the chair will let me finish my question…

FRANK: (pounds gavel) The gentleman will sus’thpend!! The chair has answered the gentleman’s question. The gentlemen will state the point of order.

McHENRY: How many times did our distinguished —

FRANK: No! No! (pounding gavel) The gentleman… (pounding gavel) The gentleman (pounding gavel) ”How many times…?” could not conceivably be a point of order! The —

McHENRY: If the chair will not answer my question —

FRANK: The gentleman will not inter’wupt. (pounding gavel)

HOUSE: (laughter)

McHENRY: Is exempted —

FRANK: (pounding gavel)

McHENRY: — from this legislation.

FRANK: (pounding gavel) The gentleman will not, eh, uh (coughing) — While, the chair is presiding, will not make speeches in the guise of a parliament inquiry. Comments —

McHENRY: Yeah. These were —

FRANK: (pounding gavel) No, no! The gentlemen will sus’thpend!

McHENRY: Then the —

FRANK: (slamming gavel harder) The gentlemen from Texas — !

McHENRY: Point of order!

FRANK: (screaming) The gentlemen from Texas will sus’thpend! (pounding gavel)

McHENRY: The distinguished speaker was out of order in the past!

FRANK: (banging gavel)

RUSH: No, I would never turn off a Republican’s microphone, I would never let them not say what they wanted to say. I don’t get caught up in that. That’s Barney Frank refusing to let Patrick McHenry say anything. That sounded very mean to me, I mean, Barney Frank really sounded mean to me there. Issa didn’t sound mean when he talked to Elijah Cummings. But Barney Frank sounded power mad mean there. So let’s listen to Issa. Well, Waxman, Henry Waxman, in May of 2008, threatened Issa. Let’s listen to that. This is about seven seconds. It goes by quickly.

ISSA: Members that could yield you time (gavel banging) I would ask that you — (gavel banging)

WAXMAN: I will have you physically removed from this meeting if you don’t stop.

RUSH: That was Henry Waxman to Darrell Issa. That was in 2008, “I will have you physically removed if you don’t stop.” What was it Cummings said? We would never cut off anybody’s microphone. We would never shut anybody up. We would never throw anybody out of here. I would fight to make sure that didn’t happen. Here’s Issa, Fox News last night, The Kelly File asked about this.

ISSA: I broke no rules and he broke the decorum of the House. But I might mention that several years ago Henry Waxman pounded a gavel and said he would have me removed because I was pointing out that he was breaking the rules. We didn’t launch any sort of a House attempt, and I certainly didn’t say that he was somehow anti-Arab-American. The fact is that I did things according to the rules, I followed a script, and then Mr. Cummings decided to have quite a hissy fit. The truth is, if he wants to talk, I give him lots of chances to talk.

RUSH: Yeah, but you see what this has become? And over here’s Lois Lerner, who’s taken the Fifth Amendment because she won’t incriminate herself in whatever it was this administration had the IRS doing to the Tea Party. That’s what’s over there, and this other meaningless pap is what this narrative has become. Did Issa treat little Elijah mean, with disrespect? And was he racist? It’s so beneath. It’s just pathetic. Just absolutely pathetic. The media are destructive agents like I haven’t seen before.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, people have asked me to play these again. They went by fast. Grab sound bites 17 and 18. Again, this idea that the Republicans are racist, it’s so formulaic and predictable, it’s just absurd. And then the media picks it up and runs with it and expands on it. And then the idea gets out there that the Republicans are exclusionary and they don’t let the Democrats speak.

Who was it that did not have a single opportunity to vote on Obamacare? The Republicans had nothing to do with it. What has Harry Reid been doing the way he’s running the Senate? It’s just absurd, this idea the Democrats are these angels, cooperative, bipartisan, agreeing creatures. And the mean Republicans are scaring everybody and racists and exclusionary, not letting the Democrats come out and play and all this.

FRANK: (pounding gavel) The gentleman will sus’thpend!! The gentleman is making a speech and will sus’thpend! The chair is not saying anything.

McHENRY: If the chair will let me finish my question…

FRANK: (pounds gavel) The gentleman will sus’thpend!! The chair has answered the gentleman’s question. The gentlemen will state the point of order.

McHENRY: How many times did our distinguished —

FRANK: No! No! (pounding gavel) The gentleman… (pounding gavel) The gentleman (pounding gavel) ”How many times…?” could not conceivably be a point of order! The —

McHENRY: If the chair will not answer my question —

FRANK: The gentleman will not inter’wupt. (pounding gavel)

HOUSE: (laughter)

McHENRY: Is exempted —

FRANK: (pounding gavel)

McHENRY: — from this legislation.

FRANK: (pounding gavel) The gentleman will not, eh, uh (coughing) — While, the chair is presiding, will not make speeches in the guise of a parliament inquiry. Comments —

McHENRY: Yeah. These were —

FRANK: (pounding gavel) No, no! The gentlemen will sus’thpend!

McHENRY: Then the —

FRANK: (slamming gavel harder) The gentlemen from Texas — !

McHENRY: Point of order!

FRANK: (screaming) The gentlemen from Texas will sus’thpend! (pounding gavel)

McHENRY: The distinguished speaker was out of order in the past!

FRANK: (banging gavel)

RUSH: So Elijah Cummings says he can’t imagine a Democrat not respecting the voice of a Republican colleague. He can’t imagine it. It would never happen. Little Elijah, he would fight for a Republican’s right to speak in the House of Representatives! “I’m not gonna get caught up in it, Erin! I mean, whether or not Issa was racist? I don’t have to say anything, as you just did. You did it for me.” Again, 2008, on Capitol Hill a House committee hearing, Henry Waxman is the chairman. The Democrats are running the House, and you’ll first hear Darrell Issa speaking, followed by Henry Waxman.

(replaying of sound bite).

RUSH: Waxman, you heard him. He even threatened Issa. Was that rude? Was it racist? I mean, after all, isn’t Issa of Arabic descent, and Waxman’s Jewish? I mean, isn’t there some sort of charge we could make there against Waxman, maybe?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, folks, let’s remember what this is all about. The IRS scandal is all about the Tea Party being silenced. That’s the whole point of the scandal: Silencing hundreds of Tea Party groups via the IRS. Elijah Cummings, he doesn’t have any problem with that. He wants to protect whoever did that. That’s the point of all of this — and that is being lost.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Anyway, folks, to wrap it up here about this IRS thing, just keep in mind here that while everybody’s focused on how mean Issa was and how he wouldn’t let Elijah Cummings talk — which, by the way, again, is not true. Elijah Cummings had a chance for an opening statement, the meeting was adjourned, and he went into that showbiz routine. But remember what this was about.

The whole point of these hearings is that the IRS silenced the Tea Party. They didn’t just try. They silenced the Tea Party. Elijah Cummings has no problem with that. Elijah Cummings is actually protecting Lois Lerner and anybody else at the Regime that participated in silencing the Tea Party. That’s what this should always be focused on. The Democrats have successfully moved it.

The whole point of this scandal was the silencing hundreds of Tea Party groups via the IRS. They did it by declining or delaying the granting of tax-exempt status so they couldn’t raise any money — and money in politics equals speech. They were shut up. Cummings doesn’t care about that, while he said, “I would never silence any of my Republican colleagues! Why, I would never turn off a Republican microphone,” he is perfectly happy with using a very intimidating agency of the government to shut down the Tea Party.